Norah O’Donnell is moving from the news desk to women’s health audio. Her new podcast, Healthful, is set to debut on July 22, with episodes built around experts, listener questions and the kind of health topics that have become harder to ignore.
That timing matters because O’Donnell is not approaching the subject as a wellness influencer dabbling in a trend. She has spent 30 years in news and has reported on the September 11 attacks and domestic violence in the military. Now she is launching a show that will take on lung cancer in never-smokers, which affects women, along with hormone therapy, movement as medicine and the diet-Alzheimer’s connection.
Healthful is being framed as interactive, with listeners able to submit questions, but the setup leaves one practical question hanging: how will those questions be handled on air? The show does not yet spell out which experts will appear or how many episodes are planned, even as it promises a format built around access and participation rather than one-way advice.
That push and pull fits O’Donnell’s own approach to health. At 52, she works with personal trainer Kira Stokes two to three times a week on functional strength training and mobility, and she takes a 10-20 minute walk right after dinner to help manage insulin levels. She usually sleeps at 8:30 or 9 p.m., wakes around 4:30 a.m., starts her day with a smoothie that includes turmeric ice cubes, black pepper, frozen blueberries, frozen banana, frozen fresh pineapple, Fage Greek yogurt, almond butter, creatine and almond milk, and keeps lunch to a salad and dinner to a protein and veggies.
There is one other detail that makes the podcast feel less scripted than strategic. O’Donnell says she does not like answering questions, even though Healthful includes a segment called Turning the Tables that will put her in the hot seat. For a journalist who has spent decades asking the questions, the next test is whether she can let the audience do some of the asking when Healthful goes live on July 22.
